novelnext Chapter 26: Money
Chapter 26: Money
chapter 26: money
four ai spoke to sun jack, but realizing he couldn’t hear her, she pulled a mechanical cochlear implant from her thigh and inserted it into his ear.
“at such close range, you dared to fire a cannon? were you not afraid of blowing yourself to pieces?” she chided, quickly tending to his other wounds.
“if i didn’t fire, i’d be the one dead,” sun jack managed to say through gritted teeth.
“with a combat prosthetic like yours, firing at such proximity risks injuring yourself. you should replace all your skin with heat-resistant and shockproof material.”
sun jack shook his head. “maybe someday.”
if he had enough money for a full-body upgrade, he wouldn’t be pawning off organs just to afford a meal.
once four ai had provided emergency treatment, sun jack propped himself up and surveyed the devastation around them.
the two aabs were completely destroyed, king kong waved at him from above, and the battered tapai crouched beside him protectively. father, however, was nowhere to be seen.
“where’s father?”
“off to find the offline server to dig up dirt on rock boy. don’t forget why we came here.”
“finally over... making money is way too damn hard,” sun jack muttered to tapai.
surprisingly, tapai didn’t respond. he stood motionless, like he had frozen.
“what’s wrong? are you broken?” sun jack, clutching his wounded stomach, gave tapai’s battered body a pat.
just then, a large red exclamation mark flashed on tapai’s screen. without warning, he raised his weapon and shot directly at four ai’s left leg joint. then, he hoisted sun jack onto his shoulder and bolted out from under the rain cover.
“you’re insane! what the hell are you doing!?” sun jack protested, struggling to get down.
a black object hurtled toward them like a cannonball, but tapai sidestepped just in time to avoid it.
pulling out a combat stimulant, sun jack injected himself in the neck, the pain and weakness ebbing almost immediately.
as sun jack prepared for a last stand, an idea suddenly came to him, and his eyes lit up.
just as the aabs crouched low, titanium claws digging into the ground, preparing to pounce, sun jack shoved a hand into his pocket and yelled:
“wait! i’ve got money!”
hearing this, the aabs froze mid-action. seeing their hesitation, sun jack’s hope surged. maybe this could work!
this trick was something he had picked up from song 6, a last-ditch gamble that he never thought would actually work.
as the aabs stopped, sun jack bluffed further. “i’ve got money—enough in my account to buy our lives!”
the aabs stayed still, possibly too simplistic in their ai to comprehend his words, but they didn’t attack.
just as sun jack was about to push his luck, a soft female voice came from the nearest aab: “transferring to a live agent. please hold...”
before sun jack could react, the red camera light on the aab’s head turned blue, and a tired male voice sounded.
“hello, sir. agent 1dw33 here. happy to assist. how should i address you?”
sun jack froze in shock. “wait! that voice—it’s the guy i interviewed with before!?”
he was stunned to realize the customer service agents they’d encountered before weren’t human after all.
as sun jack tried to figure out how to leverage this connection, a blue light scanned him, cataloging his data.
“f***, you broke-ass fool. selling your body parts and acting rich? what a waste of my time!”
with that, the agent abruptly ended the call.
the red light in the aabs’ eyes flared to life, and they bared their razor-sharp teeth, lunging at sun jack and tapai without hesitation.